Insomnia
by Cardcaptor Ryoko
Summary: One-shot, can likely be classified as a crack fic. Ren can't sleep, but apparently neither can Yoh and Horo. After the latter two break into Ren's apartment, they find something much better to do once Yoh reveals an embarrassing secret about Hao... R


Why did I write this fic? I was bored and couldn't sleep myself. At least that's when I started it. Stayed up until almost three just to finish up the first couple paragraphs. The rest was done in the morning after I woke up. A few tweaks have been made since I let a friend read it earlier today, but more or less it was just adding a few details and correcting spelling errors.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Shaman King in any way, nor do I own Avatar: the Last Airbender (slight reference later on) or You Tube.

* * *

12:33 am.

_I'm _still_ not asleep yet?!_

Tao Ren swore he went to bed at 10:45. Yet now he lay on his side, staring at the digital alarm clock, which read 12:33 am in green neon digits. He hadn't slept a wink since then, he was sure of that. A low gurgle in his stomach caught his attention. He couldn't _possibly_ be hungry at this late hour. For goodness' sake, he already ate hours before! Another gurgle. Could he? He heard a mouse scurrying about in the corners of the room. Why hadn't Jun set the mouse traps yet? Oh right, she thinks they're "cute" and "harmless". _See how "harmless" they are, then why do you scream every time you see one in the bathroom?_ he thought. His stomach growled again. Merely to get his organs to shut up, Ren reluctantly sat upright, got off the bed he was "sleeping" on, and walked out of the room into the kitchen. After recovering from the brief blinding of the just-turned-on-light, he stepped onto the cold tile floor. _There probably isn't anything in the fridge…_ he thought to himself, turning his glance from the white box to the cupboards. _But then I don't want to take my chances in there either, with all these mice running around._ So he opened the fridge anyway.

Surprisingly enough, there was actually some milk left. And if it weren't his luck, the peaches hadn't gone bad yet either. Thinking just a portion of each would satisfy his insistent midnight munchies, he pulled out the milk jug, still half-full, and one of the peaches. Pouring some of the milk into a glass, he put the jug back in the refrigerator and sat down at the table to enjoy his snack. And hopefully afterwards he could sleep.

"Psst… Hey Ren."

Seeing no one around who could have uttered what he just heard, Ren concluded that his sleep deprivation was getting to him and took a bite out of his peach, followed by a sip of milk.

"Ren!"

Ren didn't even bother looking in the direction of the voice this time and continued eating. _If I'm starting to hear things, then I'm gonna be _pissed _if I still can't sleep._

"REN!"

_Okay, either I'm getting really delusional or someone wants me dead and spiked the milk_, Ren thought, now more or less irritated by the repetitive voice. He didn't notice anything different about the milk, so 

was it the peach that was contaminated? The orange chucked in his direction didn't give him much time to think.

"Heeey, why'd you have to throw my orange?"

"Because it was the closest throwable object I could find! And why did you bring that thing with you anyway?!"

"Funga fu fu," a familiar voice rang out as the orange, its husk now cracked by the impact of Ren's fist flinging it straight back in the direction it came, rolled back toward them.

"Yoh," Ren finally spoke aloud, seething and glaring murderously in the direction of the voice, "What the _heck_ are you doing in my kitchen?"

Two people emerged from the rather wide crack between the fridge and the counter. One had blue, normally spiky but at that moment more ruffled and bead-headed than anything hair and a black headband with blue markings on it covering his forehead. Instead of his normal attire, he wore a plain white shirt and a pair of shorts. The second person, the orange-roller, had dark brown hair held back by a pair of orange, bulky headphones and dark eyes. His shirt matched that of the first, but instead of shorts he wore long pants and the same bear-claw necklace he always wore.

"I should've known _you _were behind this somehow," Ren thought aloud upon seeing the blue-haired boy. "But seriously, what are you doing in my kitchen?"

"… I actually don't know," the brunet responded, looking about in a confused manner. "Wait… what AM I doing here?! Horo, you said we were just going to pull some harmless pranks around town!"

"We ARE," Horohoro, or Horo for short, replied. "This was _going_ to be one of them."

Ren raised an eyebrow at the two boys.

"What were you two planning to do to me?!" He growled through gritted teeth.

"Well…" Horo started, "We were going to get a picture of you sleeping and snuggling your tiger plushie that by now we all know you have." It was the Ainu's turn to evade flying fruit as Ren threw what little was left of his peach at his face.

"Tough luck, I haven't been able to sleep since 10:45," Ren angrily responded as he finished the last of his milk and tossed the plastic cup into the sink.

"Hey, so have we," Yoh blurted randomly.

"So you decided to go pulling pranks on people since you couldn't sleep?"

"Pretty much," Horo answered bluntly. "Say, since you can't sleep either, want to join in? You won't believe what we have planned for the X-Laws." Ren just stared at Horo quizzically.

"They're still here?"

"Oh yeah… never mind, scratch that plan then. But who's left to prank?" This question led Ren to think, probably along different lines than the other two were. Finally a devilish grin erased his pensive expression.

"I have an idea…"

By idea, of course, he meant kicking them out of his apartment. But Horo interpreted it differently and didn't even let him carry out the plan before all three were out of the apartment and in an alleyway where they could secretly plot their plots of secret-ness.

"You know by idea I meant to –"

"Get out of your kitchen?" Horo interrupted him. "Yeah, but I figured it would be more fun if we dragged you along into our mischief-making against your will."

"And just what kind of mischief making," Ren began, "Are we talking about, aside from trying to humiliate me?"

"Well…"

"How come you guys have gotten all of the speaking parts so far?" Yoh asked, fed up with his silence.

"You just wouldn't speak up," Horo replied.

"Well, I have somewhat of an idea…"

"Spit it out," Ren barked. "I want to get this over with so I can go home and sleep."

"… You know Hao is afraid of tomatoes?"

"Yoh, are you sure you're not on something?" Horo asked, utterly confused at this declaration.

"No, I'm serious," Yoh affirmed. "Hao may act tough, but his biggest fear is that an army of tomatoes will take over the world." Horo and Ren continued to stare in utter disbelief.

"You know," Ren started, "That this info would've been very useful during the Shaman Fight, right?!" Yoh shook his head in denial.

"Nope, it wouldn't have worked then. His tomato fear began after the last possible time we had any access to tomatoes during the Shaman Fight."

"So then what do you plan on doing with Hao's fear of tomatoes?" Ren asked.

"You see," Yoh began, "Last I checked he hides out in a secret tunnel underneath the Funbari cemetery."

"Wouldn't that be a bit… odd?"

"I was kidding, he doesn't hide out in a secret tunnel," Yoh corrected himself. "He's just in a cave. The secret tunnel thing was something I saw on an American cartoon they were showing the other day on TV that Anna was watching. You know, that one with the bald kid with an arrow on his head who's actually over a hundred years old and can control the elements?"

"You mean Avatar?" Horo asked. Ren just facepalmed and glared angrily at the stupidity of the two people before him.

"Yeah, that one!" Yoh recalled. "So we'll go to Hao's secret lair, and barricade it with tomatoes."

"Yoh," Ren said, "That'll take until morning to actually see the look on his face, which we won't. We'd just hear his horrific screams from the other side of the barricade."

"Then we'll wake him up, and while he's still half-asleep we'll pelt him with them!"

"No offense Yoh," Horo began, "But that wouldn't exactly go over well. However, I do kind of feel the need to actually take advantage of this newly discovered weakness…" Horo began the prankster's thought process as Yoh and Ren stood in silence, Ren wondering just how stupid these people could get, and Yoh being genuinely curious as to what Horo was plotting. Then he finally spoke up.

"I've got it!" Horo declared triumphantly.

"So you finally have a brain?" Ren asked sarcastically.

"What's that supposed to mean, shark-hair?! I've always had a brain!"

"Not that I've seen. And shark-hair? So what if my hair sticks up in a point, at least it's not multicolored like how your sideburns are black and the rest of it is blue! What did you do, only cover the forehead down one day when trying to keep warm?!"

"Guys, stop!" Yoh intervened before a fight broke out. "Now what's your plan, Horo-kun?"

"Well…" Horo began.

"Are you sure this'll work?" Yoh asked, holding one end of Hao's body while Horo had the other. They were now in the fruit and vegetable isle of a supermarket that was closed down for the night, while Ren stood watch at the door reluctantly. Their objective, and Horo's "ingenious plot," was to put Hao in a bed of tomatoes, which they were about to do by leaving him smack in the middle of the tomato rack- shelf-thing… whatever it was called. They gently lifted him and placed him in a position where he wouldn't damage their little red minions. After handcuffing his left hand to the railing keeping the vegetable stand up, that was it. They were done. All they had to do is attentively watch the news the next morning to see what resulting chaos would ensue.

"So this is all we're gonna do tonight?" Yoh asked.

"well, we could possibly –" Horo's suggestion was interrupted by a rather loud yawn on his part. "Yeah, this is it for tonight. Better head to bed and see our results in the morning."

Sure enough, the next morning's news broadcast carried with it the fruits of their labors.

"Yoh?" Anna asked that morning upon noticing that he was awake and standing in the living room behind her.

"Uh, yeah?"

"Did you have anything to do with that?" She pointed to the TV, showing footage of Hao writhing and flailing at the tomatoes before him with the most fear-stricken expression on his face that you could imagine. As he futilely called out for the Spirit of Fire, who was nowhere in sight and still snoozing in the secret cave, the police failed in their attempts to calm him down and had to resort to tranquilization.

"No, of course not. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious," his fiancée' replied before continuing to watch the TV, whacking Horo away as he leaned over to watch as well. "As soon as you're done with what you're doing, get to work on those 5000 laps I assigned you yesterday that you never finished." After a brief groan of complaint, Yoh began dialing the number to Ren's apartment.

The videos were all over YouTube within hours, and soon the whole world knew of Hao Asakura as "the crazy Japanese guy who sleep-walked into the tomato section of a supermarket, despite his deathly fear of tomatoes," or as some people affectionately called him, "Mister Tomato Man."

* * *

"Secret tunnel! Secret tunnel!..."

Ren: could you for once stop singing that song?!

What? It's catchy! I can't help it. At least I don't have the Caramell Dansen stuck in my head like I did all day yesterday. Anyway, reviews are appreciated; flames will be given to Hao to aide in his fight against the evil plotting tomatoes, so they won't affect me. :P


End file.
